The quality of this film lands it squarely in “classic movie” territory. It’s well-made and well-acted. The practical effects are still impressive all these years later, and were an absolute landmark in movie effects for the time.

I enjoyed the palpable impatience and dread prior to the first werewolf transformation, when Credence Clearwater Revival’s “Bad Moon Rising” is playing. It’s perfect. The first night of the werewolf’s transformation includes a perfectly animalistic mauling in a park, the unfortunate look of surprise on some homeless men, and a brilliant stalking through a subway station. It was terrific how little was shown in the subway until the very end of the scene. Then the morning after the carnage was a great sequence of events that compliment the events of the evening.